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E3 might be going on in LA this week, but Sumthing Else Music Works in New York is dishing out their own goodies in tandem with the big event. Exclusively for Xbox One, the soundtrack for the Dead Rising 3 DLC, aptly going with Capcom’s other extravagant naming conventions as Super Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix, is now free to download on Sumthing.com.

“The Super Dead Rising 3 Arcade Remix soundtrack explores classic sounds, memorable themes, and frenetic beats, mixing them all together into an arcade soundscape of old and new”, revealed Oleksa Lozowchuk, Dead Rising composer and soundtrack producer. “It’s music made to strike a chord of Capcom nostalgia and put a smile on your face!”

Classic Capcom tunes, both arranged and free? Who doesn’t love that?! You can also grab the entire 99-track Dead Rising 3 Original Soundtrack off of Sumthing’s website for the reduced price of $9.99.

The people behind the web series Extra Credits have started a new weekly video series titled Extra Remix. For those of you unfamiliar with Extra Credits, it’s a weekly show, narrated by Dan Floyd and written by James Portnow, that covers topics on how videogames are designed and how they can be improved. Over the past several years they’ve covered a wide range of topics including Free to Play Games, Combining Game Genres, Graphics vs Aesthetics, and many others.

Starting back in April, the Extra Credits team has been adding new types of content to their weekly rotation, including Extra Remix, James Recommends, and the just recently announced Design Club. Extra Remix is focused on discussing and promoting the work of videogame remix artists. Host Dan Floyd introduces viewers to a new artist each week, giving some background information on the artist and playing some examples of their work. Each episode ends with a full remix track to showcase the artist’s abilities. So far they’ve dedicated episodes to artists like Big Giant Circles, Zircon, and CarboHydroM. They even dedicated an entire episode to the site Overclocked ReMix (seen below).

It’s an interesting web series that highlights the work of some very talented remix artists. This is a great way to get introduced to some new music remixers, or to become more familiar with the people behind some of your favorite VGM remixes. A new episode of Extra Remix goes up every Tuesday. Be sure to check this web series out.

Listening to arrange albums is always an interesting experience. Having a group of artist arrange another musician’s work can produce fascinating results, especially when said artists have very different styles of music arranging. Monaco: The Gentleman’s Private Collection is an album featuring arrangements of Austin Wintory’s soundtrack Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine. In addition to arrangements, the album includes some unused pieces by Wintory that didn’t make the cut for the OST. The trickiest thing about reviewing an arrange album like this is that you’re bound to find a track in a genre that you have little knowledge about or that doesn’t particularly resonate with you. So inevitably, there will be tracks that you will prefer due to preferences for certain genres. With that said, I’d highly recommend giving a listen to all of the tracks on the album. You will easily find something that suits your tastes.

A majority of the arrangements focus on the main theme,”What’s Yours is Mine”, from the original soundtrack. Tina Guo, the featured solo cellist from Journey, and The Vederi String Quartet take drastically different approaches to arranging the piece for strings. Guo’s “The Dark Heart of Monte Carlo” is a slow and somber approach to the material, featuring some wonderfully expressive cello playing. Meanwhile the Vederi String Quartet’s “A Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing” sticks with a tone similar to that of the original soundtrack, switching suddenly from an energetic pace to slow and stealthy tempo before speeding back up for the finale. Chis Gale’s “Song Of Banque” and Tomoki Miyosh’s “The Gentleman’s Partita” take a simpler approach to covering the track, using the ocarina and violin respectively for the melody with a simple piano accompaniment in their arrangements. (more…)

One part remixer, one part business entrepreneur, all parts party animal, Chris Davidson aka “Dj CUTMAN” aka “Video Game DJ” (website / Twitter) is someone you need to know about. His career in game music started a few years ago, at a MAGFest event. Since then, he and his label “GameChops” have begun to proliferate the scene. And, with the help of the newly-formed Joypad Records, they’re doing it in a way that allows for proper licensing of the source material.

To learn more about that process, the label, and what Dj CUTMAN will be laying down at MAGFest 11, as well as his latest release (a free set called Pinball Wizardry), be sure to listen to this latest episode! For this one, the co-hosts are myself (Patrick) and Brenna Wilkes.

About a decade ago, one-man studio Aeju Murasame created a trilogy of shmups. They were Gundemonium, GundeadliGne, and Hitogata Happa. The first two were horizontal (side-scrolling) shmups that took place in chronological sequence. The last was a very interesting prequel that was a vertical scrolling shmup and also featured a unique system that required kamikaze attacks, sacrificing precious (limited) lives for your dolls to move forward.

I’d have never played these games had it not been for localization firm / publisher Rockin’ Android, who released the trilogy as the Gundemonium Collection in 2011. To make the deal even sweeter, purchasing this trilogy on Steam will bring the customer a free bonus: full soundtracks for all three games, both in their original forms (from Murasame himself), and the new remixes from DM Ashura and Woofle.

I’m going to do a little compare ‘n’ contrast after the jump. Won’t you join me? (more…)

It is only one week since Chris Hülsbeck’s Kickstarter project, the Turrican Soundtrack Anthology, was announced to the world. What was then, a hope and dream over a 2 month period to revisit the past, has now become a reality. In less than 7 days, the Kickstarter has reached over $50,000 of the $75,000 asked, and is steadily climbing day by day, surely to exceed beyond the original goal. With the incredible success of the first week, Hülsbeck has provided his first of many upcoming updates.

Now, there are new pledges available. Most interestingly is the new Vinyl option. For $250 you get a LP record with the faithful recording of the original Amiga Turrican soundtrack, as well as the bonus side retro-remix style recording along with the boxset and the digital download which now also includes lossless FLAC files, allowing you to preserve the record as a collectible. The vinyl will also have exclusive artwork and your own name in the sleeve. There is also now an option to pledge 150 to receive 3 box sets as well as 3 individual download codes as well as campaign bonus track.

If you haven’t pledged yet, go to the Turrican Soundtrack Anthology and support this very exciting project, and check back for more news and details as they become available.

Navi says to LISTEN! But if you know you hate dubstep, you’ll want to ignore her.

Okay, now that the haters are gone, that leaves two groups of people: those who know and understand what dubstep is (and are either into it or are apathetic) and those who don’t quite grasp the term yet.

For the two groups left, let me ask you this: wanna hear The Legend of Zelda in a way you’ve never heard it before? Good! Follow along on this bandcamp page and read about Ephixa’s fantastic dubstep release Zelda Step from 2010… post-jump. Jumpstep? Dubjump? Double jump? I love puns. (more…)

A group of musicians has dedicated countless hours to reorchestrating music from The Legend of Zelda series and have finally finished their version of Ocarina of Time. The mission statement from their website reads as follows:

At Zelda Reorchestrated, we are commited to lush symphonic performances of the greatest songs from The Legend of Zelda™ as they would have sounded with the warm halls and intimate expression of a live philharmonic.

We do not seek profit or fame. We simply love Zelda and wish to share its inspiration on all of us with all of you.

We here at OSV are huge fans of Dwelling of Duels, a monthly game arrangement competition held over at The Minibosses Message Board. The rules are simple: every month has a specific theme, such as game specific, system based, or character based where you can only arrange a song within that set theme. The songs must contain one live instrument and from there on, it’s all up to you. Let’s take a look at the results of September’s DoD, “Rareware Month,” and at the upcoming October DoD.

I always knew that Dale was talented, but somehow it escaped me that he was such a great singer. Maybe this is due to the fact that I’ve heard Dale at karaoke a couple times, and was never overly impressed. In his defense, though, he did have a few drinks in him on those occasions.

Well, fans of Rhythm Heaven should be pleased that he’s decided to apply his musical talents to the “Love Lab” track from the game, complete with a new arrangement and lyrics written by Dale himself. The original piece was created by Japanese producer, Tsunku, and featured doo’s and wah’s instead of proper lyrics, but after hearing this arrangement, I can’t imagine the piece sounding any other way. The arrangement was originally posted to Destructoid, with visuals created by Dtoid writer Jonathan Holmes, so I highly recommend checking it out.

Were you a fan of the original “Love Lab” game in Rhythm Heaven? Do you think Dale North’s arrangement and vocals add anything to the piece?